1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to articulated plow blade devices and more particularly pertains to a new articulated dozer blade system for vehicles for performing dozing operations using an articulated blade capable of a variety of blade configurations.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Articulated plow blade devices for system on vehicles are known, and these devices have primarily been designed and used for plowing or pushing snow or other relatively lightweight friable materials. The desire to removably mount these devices on nondedicated vehicles (such as pickup truck vehicles) has required that the devices be kept relatively light in weight, which has limited the strength and durability of the devices, especially when they are used to plow friable materials that are denser (e.g., heavier) than snow, such as soil, sand or stone.
The design of these devices has also limited their usage as a "dozer" blade, such as use in a manner similar to traditional bulldozers, for spreading out and leveling out friable material. Dozer blading is a much more rigorous operation than simply pushing material such as snow in front of the blade. Typical dozer operations, such as dragging the blade backwards (known as "back-dragging") over a quantity of friable material to level out the material on the ground surface (including paved and unpaved surfaces), requires a significant amount of strength in the blade structure that these plow blade devices have typically lacked.
Further, back dragging operations require the ability to securely fix the blade against swinging movement (about a vertical axis) and against pivoting movement (about a horizontal axis), sometimes referred to as "tripping". For example, the use of springs on previous devices to pivotally bias the swing movement of the individual blade portions severely limits the ability of these devices to perform the back dragging operation. Thus, the use of previous articulated plow blade devices in operations other than snow removal has been quite limited.
Additionally, the "tripping" of the blade about a transverse horizontal axis (for accommodating obstacles encountered by the bottom edge of the blade on the ground surface) is useful for snow moving when ground obstacles may be hidden by snow covering the ground. However, the tripping feature reduces the effectiveness of the blade when attempting to move heavier materials such as dirt, sand, and rock.
The articulated dozer blade system for vehicles according to the present invention substantially departs from the conventional concepts and designs of the prior art, and in so doing provides an apparatus primarily developed for the purpose of performing dozing operations using an articulated blade capable of a variety of blade configurations.